Thirty years ago, I watched her lumber out to the grove.She was old then, with a hump on her back.In full habit and veil, she hauled gallons of waterto keep the lilies alive.

Thirty years later, I’m back.Her name is on a grave in the cemetery nearby.I took my rake and started the search.

First I found stones large as bread loaveswhich she placed around each house-sized space.Under decades of leaves, daffodils pushed, blankets of hyacinths,duvets of lilies of the valley.

By July I had found the twelve concrete stars, five-pointed, large as my hand,arranged in the ground in a room-sized oval.Within, egg sized stones embedded, described a cross entwined with the letter M.She had made the design of the back of her Medal,enclosed it with a fine brick border.In which heat soaked summer had she made this prayer?

Now Spring, her gardens bloom profusely,filling the woods with fragrance.Virginia bluebells flourishinside the Miraculous Medal.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

What else looks different from far ?What you expect it to beit is not.Four in the morning,Flurry on the radar screen.How many miles awayIn the upper atmosphere?We need another name for that direction.North is different on a map.

It looks likeScattered showers in a clear sky,and so the meteorologist calls them.How did they finally discoverthat dust on the radar wasa wide band of warblers,storm of black-throated blues,tornado of tanagers,powder of parulas,blizzard of buntings?

Prothonotaries enter a preliminary statementacross the night sky.Redstarts rush down to the new trees.